MUHAMMAD YASEEN vs MUHAMMAD AFZAL and another

ORDER

ASIF SAEED KHAN KHOSA, J.---Respondent No, 1 had been convicted and sentenced by the trial court for an offence of murder but subsequently he was acquitted by the High Court. Hence,. the present petition before this Court.

2. The respondent's acquittal had come about in connection with a private complaint instituted by the present petitioner after about four months of the alleged occurrence. Prior to that an FIR had been lodged by the petitioner in respect of the selfsame incident but in the subsequently instituted private complaint the story regarding respondent No, 1 had been changed and a new motive had also been introduced. A Muhammad Ramzan deceased was a Proclaimed Offender in connection with some other criminal case. Many prosecutions witnesses had acknowledged before the trial court in so many words that one Haji Muhammad Hayat Khan, A.S.I. had come to the place of occurrence after coming to know about presence of Muhammad Ramzan deceased at the spot but surprisingly the said Haji Muhammad Hayat Khan, A.S.I. had not been associated with the investigation and had not even been interrogated. The petitioner had himself admitted before the trial court that many residents of the locality had told the investigating officer that the deceased had committed suicide when he was being chased by the police. It could, thus, well be that the deceased, a Proclaimed Offender, had been fired at and killed by the local police when being chased and later on the story had been changed so as to save the police force from the charge of murder. Postmortem examination of the deadbody had been conducted with a noticeable delay giving rise to an interference that time had been consumed by the local police in cooking up a story for the prosecution. A new motive had been introduced through the private complaint but neither the original nor the subsequent motive had been proved before the trial court. In these circumstances the High Court had concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against respondent No, 1 beyond reasonable doubt and we have not been able to take any legitimate exception to the said conclusion reached by the High Court. This petition is, therefore, dismissed and leave to appeal is refused.